


Till Death Do Us Part

by obfuscatress



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Marriage Proposal, discussion of family history & childhood memories, established long term relationship, flirting in the graveyard, nothing says love like decomposing together, what can I say? death is simply my #1 aesthetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 05:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7702936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obfuscatress/pseuds/obfuscatress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter what James says with the both of them squeezed into a too small bed in the attic of the local B&B, Q is convinced he hates the domesticity of lying around all morning listening to the birds sing out of tune with one another while Q smokes three cigarettes end to end out of the window like it’s an art form.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Till Death Do Us Part

**Title:** Till Death Do Us Apart

************ There isn’t much left where any of them are from and even less for James than most. Q has read the files - even the ones in the paper archives with little notes by a dead woman scribbled into the margins - to find nothing at all. At the other end of the sofa, James gets the three paragraph read through of his uneventful childhood in a three person family, his dead father exchanged for his grandmother in the last four years before his name turns into a pseudonym. He knows the names of his parents are written in those pages somewhere, nestled beside a very unappealing photograph of himself eight years ago arrested without a real charge because he’s dabbling in government files at twenty and that doesn’t warrant prosecution so much as persuasion to  _ please, oh please, work for the greater good _ .

Q knows his hometown is misspelled in the interview notes and corrected in the typed up report that dissects his life over the past five years in custody. There’s a loose page with dates of birth and death for relatives already gone, but it fails to mention the family grave not three miles from his childhood home. Or that his mother sold the house years ago, but that Q still remembers it vividly with all the tricky corners he’s run into and the wiring he pulled out from under the kitchen cupboard once, nearly electrocuting himself at the age of four. They did not ask him about that in the psych evaluation, although the practitioner kept coming back to his deceased pet turtle no less than half a dozen times.

He tells James all this and more, the two of them sat in the Aston together a few street lights away from the Q’s childhood home because he doesn’t want to disturb the new owners. He glances at James nervously every now and then, constantly waiting for his interest to dwindle, because trying to make out the ruins of Q’s memories from within a veil of rain could hardly be what he’d imagined from a vacation in the countryside.

In fact, Q imagines, he must’ve imagined a week in a pulsing metropolitan or pulling Q along on a breathless adventure in the hotter stretches of South-East Asia when he’d first brought it up. But Q doesn’t do airplanes or heat or sunshine and James had agreed to something within reach of internal affairs’ meddling powers. So, now they’ve got a quaint little town with it’s own White Hare pub in one corner, a Grey Goose in the other and somewhere in between a neon lit, but undeniably necessary Tesco ruining the charm of it all. No matter what James says with the both of them squeezed into a too small bed in the attic of the local B&B sleeping in restless fits, Q is convinced he hates the domesticity of lying around all morning listening to the birds sing out of tune with one another while Q smokes three cigarettes end to end out of the window like it’s an art form.

“There’s a cliff a few miles out by a hostel in the woods,” he says in passing one afternoon over watery beer.

James’ eyebrow rises in question before he lowers the local paper. “And you’re telling me this why?”

“Because you pretend to be immersed in a full page spread about all the reported bear sightings in the area over the past month,” Q says. He licks his lips and adds, “Yes, I read the headline upside down because I am paranoid and you are bored out of your mind.”

James folds away the newspaper and returns to his beer. “Well, one of those counts is true,” he says and Q huffs.

“What could you possibly get out of wasting your perfect tan on the grimy bench of a pub I used to try to illegally get a pint from every now and then ten years ago?”

“Exactly that: your history.” James leans over the table, the muscles in his arm twitching and Q doesn’t need to see through James’ sunglasses to recognise he’s being stared at. It’s one of those looks meant to dissect people, cut them into pieces until they are only their weaknesses and desires and he shifts uncomfortably in his seat because James is the answer to both.

“I swear, if this some stupid ploy to drive me insane enough to concede to getting on a plane-”

“Q,” James interrupts in a patient tone with a look that is anything but, “I solemnly swear I’m perfectly happy rotting away with you here doing nothing at all.” He holds up his hands in a show of innocence that is undermined by his trademark smirk.

“I hate you,” Q mumbles, but sulks in a way that has ‘I love you’ written all over it.

“Right. Where do you want to hate me today, then?” James asks, unfolding a map on the table. “We’re not going cliff diving, because you’ll break your neck and we simply can’t have that. I do believe you mentioned a church the other day.”

“Well, it’s more of a chapel, really,” Q admits. He points out the little symbol on the edge of town in the middle of the cemetery.

It’s not an attraction exactly despite what their dinged up area map says, but he deems it worth seeing anyway, if only to show James the stone path his uncle accidentally dropped his dad on on his little brother’s christening day. After all, what little he remembers of his family history is the only semblance of normalcy Q has, although living with Bond isn’t far off.

James Bond, against all odds, is as terrible a morning person as every other citizen in the country, cursing out the coffee machine in their kitchen daily without fail. In a way they are like any tourist couple walking up to the chapel past the cemetery gates, but then there’s a knife strapped just below James’ waistband and Q doesn’t miss the way he scopes the area for hideouts.

“So here we are after a very long ten minute walk,” Q whispers in the doorway, and somehow the sarcasm doesn’t lose it’s edge even when it’s barely audible. “The real heart of the town: where people are born and laid to eternal rest under the eyes of God.”

He walks in without hesitation as he has dozens of times before, running his hands along the backs of the pews with neatly spaced out hymnals sitting in their racks. The books are decades old and he’s certain he’d find his name scribbled in one with green crayon, if he bothered to look. When he turns to James at the altar, Q finds him studying the chronicles in the stained glass.

“This reminds me of home,” James says and Q knows exactly what that means because he too always thinks of this little rain drenched town instead of his flat when he sees the word in a novel.

“I could never figure out the story when I was little and now it’s the only one I remember.”

Q moves over wordlessly to stare at the windows himself, recalling the last time he’d sat here at his nan’s funeral with all the colour swimming and bleeding into one another through his tears.

“It’s so strange that next to nothing remains,” James mutters. He means his memories as much as the actual house at Skyfall and Q squeezes his hand.

“All that’s left of me here is a family grave.”

That draws James’ attention away from the windows. “You mean right outside?”

“Mmh-hm.”

“We should’ve brought flowers.”

“Don’t worry: I’m the one who pays all the fees, including the gardening,” Q says. It’s not much of a consolation, but they’re both smiling anyway. “If you can get over not having a bouquet of roses to bribe my ancestors with, I can show you.”

“I think I’d like that,” he says and Q nudges him towards the side door of the chapel. “You’ll have to tell me all the dirty details about your great aunt Adelaide’s scandalous affair with the town priest at the turn of the nineteenth century.”

Q tries not to laugh, the few reverberations that leave him echoing in the body of the chapel. Outside, he says, “First of all, neither of my great aunts was named Adelaide and, secondly, I’ll have you know  _ Jane _ was happily married for 73 years and  _ Joanna _ was indisputably a lesbian.”

James dips his head to murmur, “Isn’t that exciting?” right in his ear and Q hits him in the arm with a sound resembling a scoff.

He glances around the deserted cemetery over rows of ancient grave stones slowly sinking into the mossy ground. In one row there is a half depressed bump in the ground, in another the funeral arrangements have not even started to wilt yet. Q hasn’t been at a funeral here in years, though they’ve become all too familiar in London.

“Is that the one?” James asks, recognising Q’s father’s name among the eight other tributes on the headstone.

“Yes, that’s my dad and next to him my grandmother. Granddad was buried before I was born, not long after his sister.” Q goes through each of the names, some accompanied with the odd anecdote from his childhood while for others he points to nearby graves of married brothers and sisters that were buried with their spouses in new family graves. “There’s two more spots left in the plot,” Q says, “My mum’s going to want to be with dad and my uncle just got divorced last year, so I suppose that’ll be a full house then.”

“And you?”

“I suppose I either die in the service or grow old enough to have to consider that later,” Q says nonchalantly. Their line of work is unpredictable and he is in no way illusioned about the risks.

To his great surprise, James says: “I’ve bought a plot for myself in Highgate cemetery.”

Baffled, Q says, “I thought they buried a coffin in Gunnersbury cemetery when you were last pronounced dead.”

“I was, but I wasn’t dead then,” James says. He motions for them to take a walk with the promise of an explanation. “There’s an arrangement M made a long time ago with the cemetery that’s since passed on into Moneypenny’s care. Double-oh agents get to pick their own funeral plots as a part of the psychological training for the job and mine used to be up in the Skyfall chapel cemetery until the first time I was pronounced dead.

“I was lucky enough to have come back before the formalities of the funeral. It was a busy month, and I, as a single man with no next of kin, was not a priority. That’s when I realised I didn’t want to have an empty coffin sitting in the ground beside my parents. I also didn’t want to be buried falsely again and again in the same spot until I actually died and it wouldn’t have meant anything anymore to the few faces that’d show for the funeral, because you’re not supposed to mourn the same man a dozen times.

“And that’s when I found the loophole. MI6 and some other affiliated government organisations follow a special addition to the Burial Act, which means both extra regulations and more freedom. In my case that manifested as an exceptionally granted plot at Highgate cemetery under the condition that the plot is only available for the burial of a physical body that can be identified to be me.”

“So, you can’t be buried there unless your body is recovered as a sort of ultimate proof of your death?”

“Yes.”

“And otherwise?”

“I get the same honorary spot anyone who dies unexpectedly in the SIS is offered.”

Q is silent for a long while, following the way the remnants of the previous day’s rain showers cling to his shoes and stain the leather dark. “How come you’ve never told me about this?” Q asks.

James shrugs. “Well, it hasn’t come up, for one, but primarily I’ve not said anything because this has - thus far - been more of a professional than a personal matter.”

Q is about to point out there couldn’t be anything more personal than picking a burial plot, when his brain computes the statement in full and he asks: “What do you you mean ‘thus far’?” He stops mid row and turns to look at James properly.

“What I’m trying to say-,” James starts and then falls silent, gesturing vaguely, “There are two spots in that plot and - legally speaking, which I checked not long ago - you are entitled to a similar agreement as I am. So, if you want to share a grave, I have an extra spot reserved.” He sighs, evidently frustrated with himself, and runs his hand through his hair. He’s walking again and Q follows.

“Are you asking me to rot away with you for all eternity?” he asks.

“I’m asking you to marry me.”

“Oh.” Q falls behind several steps and this time James is the one to stop and turn to him. He looks so earnestly hopeful and absolutely terrified at once, for a moment Q can’t even breathe. “I- Yes.”

He isn’t even sure what he says at first, somehow miles away from his body and the mouth that utters the word. James’ fantastical grin grounds him and he lets out an anxious laugh.

“Yes, I’ll marry you,” Q repeats, “but why in the bloody hell are you asking me in a cemetery? How do you think I’ll explain this to my family?” He’s shouting by the end, then sniffles, laughing with overwhelmed tears clouding his vision. Q may be practically blind crying, but he’s still aware of James’ hands on his arms, sliding around him to pull him into a tight embrace.

“I can honestly, for once in my life, say that I don’t have the faintest clue, but I’ll go along with whatever lie you come up with. As for the cemetery proposal, I want to share all of myself with you and  grave may be all there’s left of me one day.”

“That isn’t true. You’ll always be preserved in my memory. There’s probably an entire archive shelf down in the vaults dedicated to your antics. I don’t think Britain could ever forget you,” Q argues. “We could still have a common memorial plate installed here just to make sure.”

James is quiet for a while and then says, “I think I’d like that.”

“Eventually, no matter what happens, you would be here with me.” Q slides his hands up James’ back, muttering into his neck, “But until then, I’m going to have to talk to mum about this arrangement, so do you at least have a ring I can distract her with?”

“I rather thought the prospect of an eternity spent together would be enough to satisfy you for one day.”

Q pulls away just enough to glare at James. “So, you’re telling me I am going to have to tell my mother I was proposed to with a literal burial plot?”

“The phrase is ‘till death do us apart’, isn’t it?”

“I’m personally going to kill you one of these days.”

“Now, now. Don’t get ahead of yourself,” James says. “We’re not even married y et .” 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Highgate cemetery is perhaps the most renowned London cemetery. Built in 1839 in an area of dense vegetation, the stunning cemetery is part of the “Magnificent Seven” - a graveyard elite. Several members of the Royal Society are buried there along with writers, scientists, artists, and (perhaps most notably) Karl Marx. Plots are available even today, although they are only offered either for immediate use or limited acquisition that requires the plot holder to be over 80 years of age or terminally ill. Obviously none of these conditions are met by Bond, but I went with the assumption MI6 could wrangle a deal, since the lifespan of a double-oh agent is statistically proven to be very short. As for the second plot, I took liberties in the name of fiction.
> 
>  
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> Thank you for reading :) All thoughts & feedback would be immensely appreciated.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at obfuscatress.tumblr.com or on twitter @shippress.


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